Friday, February 19, 2016

Nora Kate | A Birth Story

Thank you all SO much for all of the love and congratulations on our precious little love. We are so over the moon in love with this sweet girl! How could we not be?

So now, before I forget her entire birth, I figured I should document it with lots of details and a massive photo dump!Before we get to the actual birth, just so I don't forget this part I want to note that at my 36 week appointment I was 3cm, 90% effaced and 1 station! Then, on January 31st at 37 weeks 2 days I went into labor and progressed to 5cm. Labor stalled and since I was only 37 weeks they would not induce me. I was sent home and told to take it easy and be ready to book it to the hospital should I go into labor again or my water broke. What a whirlwind! Then, on Tuesday February 9th around 8pm, I started having very strong contractions. I was really ready to have this baby so I walked, bounced on an exercise ball and did laundry to try and keep the contractions coming. At 10:00 The Hubs and I decided to go to bed, my contractions were the same so I figured they would fizzle out again and it would be nothing. I laid in bed until 11:30, and finally fell asleep. Then at about 12:30am I was woken up by strong contractions. I got up to go to the bathroom and promptly had another strong contraction. I still wasn't so sure if this was it so I went back to bed. Literally 5 seconds after laying down again, my water broke! I got up to make sure and from the bath room had to yell Collin's name FOUR times before he heard me. I said "Babe! My water broke!" He sat right up out of bed and said "let's do this!"We both jumped into action gathering anything we needed, getting the dogs situated in the living room and then hopped in the car. We had a 30 minute drive to the hospital and on the way my contractions were getting way stronger and were about 5 minutes apart. We made it to the hospital in 25 minutes (God gave us EVERY green light!) and got to the OB floor and luckily were the only ones there. We got checked into the same room my false alarm had been in and they quickly hooked me up to everything I needed since I came in already at a 5 with my water broken. They checked me right away and I was 6cm, 100% effaced. They went ahead and ordered my epidural but no one could find the ONE guy who did pain relief for the whole hospital. So we ended up waiting an hour for my epidural, at this point I was at an 8 and in A LOT of pain! I was thinking they wouldn't give me an epidural at that point but they said if I could stay calm and sit still for it they would still give it to me. You better believe I made myself still and calm!

This was after the epidural :) Last few hours pregnant with our little one! So ready to find out if it's a boy or girl!

Magically after the epidural, everything got better! After about 2 more hours I was 10cm and they were ready for me to push. This part was so much more low key then I thought it would be. I pushed for about an hour and half before my doctor came in. Then after another half hour of pushing, at 9:04am our baby GIRL was born! She was sunny side up but perfectly healthy and absolutely perfect! I was convinced it was a boy so I was shocked to see a little girl in my arms! The Hubs and I bawled our eyes out while looking at every adorable inch of our sweet Nora Kate!

She weighed 7lbs 3oz, 20 inches long and had a head full of strawberry blonde hair. All the nurses kept commenting on her hair color and how unique it was!

Labor and delivery were not at all what I expected it to be. In so many ways is was much easier than I thought it would be and much more amazing and emotional! Now, Miss Nora is getting close to 2 weeks old and we cannot imagine our lives without her!